For a couple of years now, I’ve understood that because of the shape of my left foot, I will need a cane to get around safely and ensure I keep my balance as I age.

The arch in that foot has essentially collapsed, throwing off my balance and causing other problems. I tilt.

Those are not good dynamics for a big and tall man. Falling, which I used to do regularly,  is no longer an option.

I’ve put off getting a cane; it seemed the ultimate symbol of old age. It was a line I was having trouble crossing. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I can always kid myself that I look young when I get around, but walking with a cane is a statement.

I believe in radical acceptance, but that doesn’t always mean I can do it. There’s no turning back with a cane. My foot is so weird I used a club on one of my book tours (and with a rod, you can get on a plane early.)

But after the book tour, I stopped using it. I don’t need it all the time, but I will need it occasionally.

When I announced this to Maria, she lit up and said: “if you’re getting a cane, you ought to get a Werewolf Cane, like the one in Lon Cheney’s werewolf movie. That would be so cool.”

It was a brilliant idea, coming to someone who understands how to get me to love getting a cane rather than dreading it. How wonderful to be finally known.

If I’m creative about aging, I realize I will be easier with it. I want to make it work for me.

I can’t wait for the cane to come (estimated delivery date March 9). And I can’t wait to walk with it. That’s pretty amazing to me.

I started stalking the Internet for the right can days before finding what I wanted. There was a bronze wolf head I loved, but it was more than $300. Mine was less than $200.

My cane is a custom-made, black cane with a wolf’s head at the top made by artisans just outside Llanwelly, Wales, where the Werewolf movie was filmed and supposedly took place—the perfect place for me to get one made for me.

A “wolf’s head” cane, as they are called, is simply a walking stick fitting with a metal handle in the shape of a wolf’s head. You can get the wolf’s head in metal, gold, silver, or bronze. I can afford metal.

These canes are supposed to ward off – and kill, if necessary – all kinds of evil spirits.

This cane became famous in 1941 in the classic Universal Pictures movie The Wolf Man, one of the best so-called “horror” movies ever made.

The protagonist was a tragic figure named Lary Talbot, as played by Cheney, the perfect person for the role. This was one of my all-time favorite movies; I must have seen it hundreds of times.

Talbot returned to Wales to attend the funeral of his brother.

He had no interest in canes, but he bought a wolf’s head cane for $15 to flirt with Gwen Conliffe, who ran an antique store in the village.

Talbot showed it to his grumpy father, Sir John Talbot, who complained that it was just an “old walking stick.”

That same evening Talbot was walking with the stick that he suddenly needed to use to drive off a wolf that had attacked a local girl in the village.

He bludgeoned the wolf to death and later found out that the silver in the handle killed the animal. The creature was a werewolf named Bela.

While fending off the fatal attack, Bela bit Talbit, and he now had the curse of lycanthropy, where bitten human beings turn into wolves at the full moon and become unwilling killers.

It was the same wolf’s stick that Larry’s father, Sir John, was forced to use on his son when he was  transformed into a werewolf.

Talbog was a tragic character, a good man looking for love who never meant to harm anyone but couldn’t help himself.

He helped bring about his death in order to spare others. Chaney had the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen in a movie.

So I’m getting a cane, thanks to Hollywood and Maria. And I can’t wait. Sometimes, I confound myself.